Russia Blasts US For Supporting ‘Moderates’ Who Gas Civilians In Syria

Syrian rebels launched a toxic gas attack in the city of Aleppo on Tuesday killing 7 and injuring 23 people

Russia has blasted the United States for supporting moderate militant groups who launch toxic gas attacks against civilians in Syria.

The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman referred to the militants as “animals.”

“The United States is supporting these animals, who used poison gas against the civilian population,” Maria Zakharova said, adding that “Unfortunately it’s not the only tragedy which the ‘moderates’ backed by Washington stand behind.”

Zakharova has called on the Western mainstream media to refrain from double standards in reporting on the Syrian conflict and to cover the crimes committed by the US-backed groups in the country.

The Syrian rebel group, Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, considered ‘moderate’ by Washington used toxic gas shells that killed seven and injured 23 in Aleppo on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Lieutenant-General Sergey Chvarkov, the director of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, said Moscow had warned Washington about the use of toxic shells by the US-backed ‘moderate’ militant group a day prior to the attack.

The Russian diplomat further held the Nour al-Din al- Zinki terror outfit responsible for the recent chemical attack in the Salaheddine district of Aleppo.

Members of the militant group are already involved in the beheading of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, named Abdullah Tayseer al-Issa, in northern Aleppo.

The terrorists initially claimed in a video that the child had been fighting for the Syrian government in Aleppo, thought it was later revealed that the victim was a kidnapped Palestinian refugee from a poor family.

Zakharova also accused the US Air Force of indiscriminately bombing inhabited parts of the town of Ghandour, which lies more than 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) away from the violence-ridden city of Manbij, on July 28. At least 28 people, including seven children, lost their lives and dozens of others sustained injuries.

“If our Western colleagues and above all Washington do everything again not to notice these facts, then any of their talk about an end to bloodshed in Syria will simply become preposterous,” the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman pointed out.
The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh positions inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh.